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Women's Republic of France
The Women's Republic of France is a matriarchal society in Imperium Offtopicum XIV, played by Omega124. Part of a running theme of militant feminist states, it was originally created as a joke but went on to become her most well-developed iteration of the satire. Embodying an ideology of gender-based revolution, the country oscillates between jingoist brinkmanship and 'wait-and-see' realism, and despite relative political isolationism remains one of the major European powers, both complicit in the Rosemary incident and instrumental in ending the Indonesian War. History The exact origins of the Women's Republic are unclear. The country was founded in the mid-21st Century after the last world conflict, and the ensuing regional tribalism meant that for the first few decades the country existed in isolation. Under the presidency of Célestine Rome, France maintained extremely high tariffs on the purchase and sale of male-manufactured goods, ostensibly required "for the survival of the matriarchy", that stifled the domestic economy and all but prevented serious international trade. Campaigning on a platform of economic renewal, Yvette Pettigrew of the National Party won a landslide victory in 2100; she abolished the taxes and fought further male regulation, but the Venus Party regained control of the National Assembly by 2104 and further restrictions passed despite presidential veto. Pettigrew's commitment to the Feminist cause came under question, and the Marie Curie College shooting led to conspiracy theories over the Rosemary incident that left a permanent black mark on her presidency. In 2106, OSIRIS operatives attempted to assassinate Pettigrew by launching a cruise missile strike on the Palais Élysée in retaliation for French special forces involvement against its own leadership in the 2090s. Pettigrew was evacuated, but Vice-President Camus and most of the cabinet were killed and in the ensuing confusion Pettigrew was declared legally dead. With no clear chain of succession an emergency election was called, but voting was perpetually postponed due to fighting between the National and Venus parties. Jeannette Hiver, former talk show host and projected candidate for the Venus Party leadership in 2107, exploited public agitation into a storming of the Conseil d'Etat and her self-appointment as President, immediately declaring a state of emergency, dissolving the Senate and arresting the sitting members of the National Assembly before mobilizing the army for what was suspected to be a pre-emptive attack on the German Empire. Hiver's term was cut short by the return of Pettigrew, sparking a legal battle over who legally held the presidential office. While the judiciary had been stacked with revanchists sympathetic to Hiver's platform, eleventh-hour intervention by the STD led to a ruling in Pettigrew's favour. Furious over the counter-coup and concerned for her own safety, Hiver fled to a now-feminist Indonesia, vowing to return. Aware of her own dubious standing before a hostile public, Pettigrew did not seek re-election the following year and retired from politics shortly thereafter. In an effort to establish mutual rapport, the National and Venus parties ran the same ticket, Amiée Durand, who was elected President in 2107. While a Venus moderate, she was considered radical by the Nationals, and her vice-president Annette Renard was the controversial author of the 2104 allegorical novel The Folly of Men, denounced by outside observers as "The ultrafeminist's answer to Mein Kampf". Durand sought reconciliation with the National Assembly but continued draconian misandrist legislation, and tense relations between France and Monaco soured further after Renard publicly decried Monegasque independence as "A blight on all Frenchwomen, north and south". Even this was unsatisfactory to the ultra-radicals, and Durand was assassinated in the winter of 2112, likely due to a "soft" stance on the Indonesian War. Renard briefly served as acting President before inviting Hiver back to France, ceding the office to her in exchange for vice presidency, the interior ministry, and command of the STD. France joined the war in support of Indonesia in 2113; after the government in Yogyakarta collapsed, France and Britain assumed direct control of the country, and ultimately negotiated a withdrawal of all foreign forces. Shortly thereafter and against Hiver's instructions, Renard orchestrated a false-flag operation to justify a military takeover of Monaco. Misandry Lack of global contact prior to 2080 led successive governments to enact increasingly restrictive policies against the male populace, including barring formal citizenship and enforcing a night-time curfew, violation of which was punishable by castration. While these measures were controversial in their own right, they never provoked serious political discourse and were generally accepted by the mainstream as a necessary evil at worst, common sense at best. This consensus began to break down in the wake of The Folly of Men, with disillusioned citizens campaigning for the true gender equality the revolution had supposedly promised, culminating in the campaign for eunuch suffrage. Following the release of an Irish investigative documentary in 2104, the scope of state misandry was brought to outside consciousness, although Pettigrew's government did not recant and the eunuchs' rights movement was quashed. The Durand administration oversaw continued curtailment of what few men's rights remained, with public congregations of three or more males outlawed and access to education, particularly secondary education, obstructed, as part of a general trend toward removing men from public life. National science agencies were preoccupied with the development of synthetic sperm, with the goal of eradicating the biological function (and thereby necessity) of the male sex as well. Rumours persist of a secret project dubbed the A-bomb that will "forever settle the gender question"; asked in a 2112 interview on whether the government was involved in such a project, Hiver refused to comment. Category:French-speaking countries and territories Category:European countries Category:Feminist states Category:Countries in IOT14